Bulgarian Officers to Police Resorts in Northern Greece

Greek policemen patrolled together with Bulgarian colleagues the Bulgarian winter resort Bansko for the first time during the 2010-2011 season. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian police officers will be patrolling resorts on the Halkidiki Peninsula in Northern Greece, according to the latest arrangement between the two country's Interior Ministries.

The Bulgarian-Greek joint patrols in Halkidiki, which enjoys the largest density of Bulgarian tourists of all Greece's regions over the summer season, are a follow-up of the policing of the Bulgarian ski resort Bansko by Bulgarian and Greek officers over the winter.

Meeting on Wednesday, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and his Greek counterpart Christos Papoutsis agreed that the Greek policemen will continue to patrol in the Bulgarian winter resorts next season, the Interior Ministry press center said.

In 2010, Bulgaria move to start joint police patrols of key tourists destinations with Romania and Greece because of the large number of Romanians on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in the summer, and the large number of Greeks in the Bansko ski resort.

Tsvetanov and Papoutsis have sent a joint letter to their Turkish counterpart Osman Gunes offering him to set up a joint Contact Center at Bulgaria's Kapitan Andreevo crossing where the borders of Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey meet.

The Interior Ministers of Bulgaria and Greece have been motivated by the success and efficiency of the so called Contact Center at the Promahonas crossing on the Bulgarian-Greek border, which increases the speed of services and helps resolve various cases.

Building upon the good practices from the Kulata-Promachonas Contact Center opened in 2010, Bulgaria and Greece invite Turkey to start a similar project, which is supposed to increase the options for real-time exchange of information between the police and customs authorities of the three countries.

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